VST plugins

November 18, 2010

So recently I had to wipe my computer clean and start from scratch. I had quite a plethora of free vsts on the computer and decided that most of them weren't really worth re-installing. Here are the 10 that made the cut and were re-installed on the machine because I do use them frequently. I think most of these are PC only folks... Click on the VST title to go to the download pages for each VST.

1. TAL- Noisemaker - So pretty much everything put out by TAL is really good and usable, but I think Noise Maker stands out. I find myself using this synth alot for sound design and music. It has a nice fat analog sound to it and it is really easy to tweak to get the sound you want out of it.

2. Analog Warfare (1, 2, &3) - This comes as a suite of 3 plugins (Analog Warfare 1, 2 & 3). Install all of them. They are all slightly different and good for creating creative synth textures, modulation & arpeggios.

3. TAL Dub III - Another TAL plugin, this is a great simple little delay vst that allows you to create tempo synched or free form delays. You can control what speakers the delay is pumped to and there is even a drive knob that allows for some subtle distortion. I find myself reaching for this delay quite often.

4. String Theory - This is a physical modelling synthesizer. Its specialty is strings. The synth has 2 arpeggiators which allows for some complex patterns. The range of the type of sounds it can create is impressive.

5. TAL Filter II - This is a filter vst lets you apply an envelope across time and apply it to 7 different types of filters (the same ones used in Noise Maker) as well as pan and volume.

6. Rez 2.0 - This is a monophonic virtual analog synth that is bright and resonant sounding. I use it alot for bass lines that I need to cut through the mix.

7. Boom Comb - This is a comb filter plugin that I use quite a bit for sound design to get crazy flange/delay/gritty style effects.

8. Valhalla FreqEcho - This is the only free multi-band delay I know of, and it's good. I used it on vocals for the last dance remix I worked on. It was great for building up tension. I would also recommend this for sound design as well.

9. TAL Tube - This vst is a tube amp simulator which adds warmth to any sound you apply it to. I use this one alot to add extra oomph to drums especially.

10. DBlue Glitch - Glitch is an effects sequencer that allows you define the size of the slices of audio it effects based on a time grid. I use this plug quite often on drums to spice up boring loops or patterns.

Well I hope you enjoy these 10 plugins. I think you'll find they are definitely the cream of the crop.

May 26, 2010

At work they upgraded me to a 64-bit PC running Windows 7. I was pretty happy about this until I discovered that I couldn't run my 32-bit vst plugins in my 64-bit version of Cakewalk Sonar 8.5. A friend of mine recommended "BitBridge" which at some point was Sonar's answer to using 32-bit plugins in their DAW but I could find very little information on it. However, I did find a little app called "JBridge" which does the trick. Once installed you can run your 32-bit VST effects and instruments in your 64-bit DAW. I only tried this with Sonar, but according to their documentation this should work with other 64-bit DAWs as well. You can download a demo version for free to see if it works for you. The full version is: 14.99 GBP or $21.62 US. For more information visit the JBridge Site.

March 19, 2010

Have you ever noticed that some free VST synths have names that sound like viruses? I've downloaded a few vsts that were so aptly named that I figured if they did turn out to be viruses it would be my own damn fault for not getting the hint from the title.

Here are the ones that hit the top of my paranoia list:

The Devil Inside

HAHAHA

Karnage by Kriminal

Scandalous

Imp-osc-ter

Incidently, all these are legit and not viruses :) Now that my nerdy joke is out of the way... here are 3 free VSTs I think are worth mentioning.

TranceDrive, created by Maik Menz, is a nice big fat sounding VST, complete with 3 oscillators, 3 LFOS a choice of filters (Low, High and Bandpass) and a host of effects: gate, chorus, phaser, flanger, distortion, delay, reverb & EQ. Each oscillator supports 6 different wave types including a super saw which allows you to get really fat sounding basses.

Probably the only drawback is there are only 11 presets, but the synth is cool and its fun to make your own. I'm working on a bank of original presets for this synth that I will post for you to download as soon as I finish :)

The Polly8 made by Osirus Synths is a wonderfully warm and fat sounding synth. The sound reminds me a little bit of the Prophet VS. It features 2 Oscillators, 2 LFOS, a Low and Highpass filter, Delay, Chorus, Arpeggiator, Phaser & EQ. I love the pads and synth sweeps on this one. Definitely worth the download in my opinion.

The HAHAHA CS33, made by Perthu Music, has 2 oscillators, 1 filter, 1 LFO to EGs and Distortion, Reverb, Delay & Chorus. I think the filters sounds really nice on this synth and some of the presets really show off some very cool sounding filter modulation. Like the other 2 synths this one feels pretty polished and doesn't feel or sound at all like a free vst. Another one worth downloading...

---

In closing I also want to mention a relatively new resource on the internet called MyVST. This is a cool site that shows you video demos of free VSTs and other audio tools. It has video demos of the three synths mentioned up above if you need more convincing before you take the plunge and download them ;-)

February 02, 2010

I have some pretty nice friends... some of them even name synthesizers after me ;-) My friend, Scott Snyder, (aka Cos&FX) who aside from being a Sound Designer in the video game industry, also creates audio plugins on the side. He decided he wanted to start making them available to the masses so I said I'd help out and offer a place to post them and help create the presets. "Heather" is his first offering. It's a VST synth that applies additive and subtractive synthesis elements to create its sounds. The two filters are very resonant and with some tweaking can be really dramatic and wacky if applied to one of the 2 LFOs. This is a good synth for cutting basses, large screechy sweeping pads, leads and scifi sound effects. For just two oscillators it can be *really* F A T.

I've thoroughly hammered on this VST using Cubase 4 and Ableton Live 8.1 and it is solid... no wierdness. Give it a shot... its free what do you have to lose?

January 26, 2010

On Synthtopia on Jan 21, there was a post about a free Waves L1 clone called Yohng W L1. Waves L1 costs $300 so when someone claims they have created a clone and are offering it for free I become curious. I become even more curious when the developer's site claims it creates "identical" output. I have Waves L1, so I decided to load up SoundForge and put these two plugins to the test, head to head and see for myself.

When comparing these two plugins I was interested in seeing if:

The features match up

How they compare with overall RMS values on a processed file

How they compare on peak analysis and sound coloration on a processed file

Features: YES - well only the limiter part -- No Ultramaximizer

There are two flavors of Waves L1. There is the L1 limiter & the L1 Ultramaximizer. For the sake of clarity I should mention that this free limiter is a clone of the L1 limiter and not the L1 Ultramaximizer. So perhaps this clone isn't going to save us $300 like mentioned above, but it may get us halfway there. :)

The L1 limiter consists of a threshold slider, a cieling slider and a release slider. The Yohng W L1 has all of these as well. When comparing the two side by side you'll notice you can't get the exact same settings on the release slider. The Waves release slider goes from -.01 ms to 1000.00ms, the Yohng Limiter goes from -1ms to 5000.00 ms. But for most applications you wouldn't want to set your release any lower than 1 millisecond anyway, so this isn't too much of an issue. Also, ms are rounded up in the Yohng tool.

I took three different types of samples: a drum loop, a vocal bit and a piece of music to perform my tests on. All the screenshots here are from this analysis using the Waves PAZ analyzer.

Is RMS Output Identical? YES

The RMS frequency analysis is identical.

Is the Peak Output and Sound Coloration identical: So Close I'll Give it a Yes

Waves L1, despite any marketing speak you have heard, is not transparent. One of the reasons we choose to use L1, atleast in the video game world, is because of its sound coloration. It gives a little bit of a raw edge to sounds which is really great for things like drums, gunshots, and less dynamic types of music. If you are looking for transparency I would suggest L2 & L3.

So my next curiosity was to see if the Yohng W L1 colored sound the same way Waves L1 does. It sounds very, very similar to the Waves L1. The Yohng W L1 isn't entirely consistent in being dead on with Waves L1, in some files I noticed a slight dip at 20hz and occasionally some wierd dips in the low mids. However 95 percent of the time I would say it looked identical. (See the screenshots below for an example)

In Conclusion: This limiter is free and really, really close to it's more pricey inspiration. If you're looking for a limiter that sounds like L1 and you're on a budget, this one will do the trick.

January 14, 2010

Last week I posted my list of favorite free vst effect plugins. I thought I would follow that up with my favorite 10 free vst instruments for the PC. There seems to be twice as many free synth vsts than effect vsts. Going through them all to find the good ones is a chore. For as many as I have saved in my plugin folder I have deleted just as many that just weren't that good. It seems almost anyone can make a synth with Synth Maker or Synth Edit which is great for people learning to make plugins :)... but it makes finding good and usable free ones a bit more difficult. Here is my list of favorites to date.

I can't believe this synth is free actually. It uses a combination of additive and subtractive synthesis to create its big sound. It has 2 oscillators, but in "superwave" mode it plays 7 wave forms. It also has 2 filters, 2 LFOs, as well as delay. It is warm and fat and conjures up memories of old Gary Numan & Jean Michel Jarre records.

While were on the subject of nice and fat...lets talk about Amphetamine. This is a 6 oscillator synth that has great pads. The filters are funky sounding and that's what I like best about it. It also has a primitive gate sequencer in it as well. This was entered in the 2009 KVR challenge. It didn't place, but that doesn't mean it isn't a good pick.

3. Originally my choice in this spot was 23 Words by XOXOS, but his site has been down for over a week now so I can't recommend it anymore.

This is a sample playback vst. What makes it so interesting is you can load up to 23 different wave snippets into the vst and then play them back in order or randomly. This yields some very interesting and inspiring results. I find that it is good for loop creation and ideas.

Augur, according to its maker's website, is an "ongoing attempt at a Prophet VS clone". I don't think it comes close to the richness and beauty of the Prophet VS, but its still worth downloading. The vst uses the same modulation matrix diagram that is printed on the actual synth and allows you to make modulation choices by clicking radio buttons in the diagram. This is a pretty intuitive design.The modulation possibilites are very interesting on this vst. I like the way its layed out and I like the sounds I can mangle from it. The UI isn't pretty and that may make it unusable for some folks, but I like making sounds on this vst and its easy to make usable ones.

This is another synth I couldn't believe was free. This is a semi-modular synth that has elements of FM synthesis and subtractive synthesis. It has synthesized wave forms and sampled wave forms to choose from as starting points. There are multiple modulation envelopes and a modulation matrix that lets you assign sources and targets for modulation. This synth can create some incredibly creative sounds and it sounds good. Its not only good for musical sounds but also for sound design.

This vst is based on FM Synthesis and has a nice intuitive interface. It has 4 operators and multi-stage envelopes to mess about with. I haven't had tons of time to play with this one, but I think the presets are interesting. This synth was the 3rd place winner in the 2009 KVR Challenge. One thing to note is that the web page does warn of possible crashes on multi-core machines if you run more than one instance of FMMF. I haven't had this issue yet though.

I think this one has been available for awhile, but none the less I think its solid. The presets are all pretty good and straight forward and there is a lot of tweakability here. The 1000 free pre-sets come from the Proteus 2000 MIDI sound module. You can also load any sounds from the Emulator X library into it as well.

This is a virtual emulation of the Roland Juno 60. This UNO-62 is the most current version of the plug in, there was a previous version call the UNO-60. Togu Audio Labs refactored the old TAL-UNO 60 to make it a more accurate representation of the Roland Juno 60. I like it because it does sound pretty convincing and I can always manage to fenagle a buzzy bass sound out of it that can cut through the mix when other vst synths fall flat in this category.

This emulation of the Mini Moog has some additional features like a step sequencer and arpeggiator. It sounds pretty close to the real thing. You're never going to completely emulate those fat filters in a vst I think, but none the less for a free vst this is pretty darn good.

His Arp 2600 vst synth sounds pretty nice too, but I haven't had good luck with its reliability in Ableton LIVE, so I can't personally recommend it. It crashes alot for me.

This is NI's free instrument player that also comes with some free sounds (Make sure you download the free Holiday 2009 pack). The sounds are really polished,solid, very usable AND tweakable to some degree. NI also has an arsenal of sound packs for the Kore player that you can purchase online at their site.

So there it is. My list of the top 10 free VST instruments. All of these have been tested and used in Cubase 4 and Ableton Live 8.1 on a computer with Windows XP. If you have any favorites I missed I'd love to know about them.

January 08, 2010

Hello and Happy New Year to you all! To start out 2010 right I thought I'd post my lists of my all time favorite FREE VST plugins. This post will focus on FREE VST effects. There are alot of FREE VSTs available out there of varying quality. Downloading them all and trying them out can be like rummaging through a thrift store looking for treasure. It takes time and patience. However you can find some diamonds out there if you look. I have a pretty good arsenal of commercial plugins which are almost always good, but here are a list of FREE VSTs that I find myself using often because they are just as good or incredibly unique. If you can look past the sometimes homely interfaces of some of these homebrew plugins you will find you are in posession of a some very creative and good sounding audio tools. (Click on the title of the VSTs to go to the download sites :)

I was apprehensive when I downloaded this. How interesting can a distortion plug in be? (proof I'm not a guitar player ;-) Dime a dozen I thought. Well I should have known better. Camel Audio makes some great sounding plugins and this is no exception. This plug in is a distortion box with a compressor and a filter. I use this one alot. Nice warm big distortion and you can assign the filter to a midi controller and effect real time...worth downloading :)

Glitch is a sort of an effects sequencer which allows you to specify a sequence or randomly trigger one or all of the following effects: Tape Stop, Modulation, Retrigger, Shuffle, Reverse, Crush, Gate, Delay and Stretch. This plugin is most popularly used on drum loops, but the creative possibilities with this are endless. This makes creating glitchy effects much easier and more creative than it used to be. I use this plug in alot when I'm making drum or rythmic loops.

This one has been around awhile, but I have yet to find another plugin that can mess up drumloops as nicely as this one can. I recommend using the random setting on this one. :) In fact, check out all the DFX plugins if you haven't already. They are all interesting.

I downloaded this one from KVR awhile ago, and it finds its way onto my tracks in LIVE alot. I like the way it spins the audio around in the stereo mix. I've never had a Leslie cabinet so I can't tell you how realistic it is, but I like the way this plug in sounds and its tweakability.

If you want killer reverb, the reality is you're going to have to go with a commercial package. I like Altiverb...but its a matter of preference. However, if you can't afford a fancy expensive reverb, this one is pretty good for adding subtle room ambience to voice and music. This is a convolution reverb that operates using room impulses like alot of the expensive commercial reverbs. It also allows you alot of room for tweaking. It wont give you that fancy orchestral hall sound, but it will give you good quality small room and studio reverbs for free :) This was the 2nd place winner in the 2009 KVR plugin contest. Be sure to download the extra room impulse pack from here.

I like this phaser because it has a quirky sound to it that cuts through mixes. I like to use it on bass and drums. This is part of a larger collection of free plugins offered by Kjaerhus Audio which I have tried out and would have to say are all pretty good...this one is my favorite though.

Any time I want to add immediate interest to a static sounding drum loop or synth part I always find myself reaching for this delay plug in. Use this in addition with an auto-panner to get some nice results.

This is part of a pack of free plugins from Jeroen Breebaart. This particular plug in is a magnetic tape simulator. I use this one alot to warm things up and add a little flavor during mixdown. Ferric is good too (the KVR 2009 winner) but I find that Ferox has more personality with its ability to manipulate tapespeed, noise and feedback.

10. Originally my choice for this spot was SandH by XOXOS. However his site went down the second week of January and is not back up, so I sadly can't recommend it anymore :(

This is another glitch-y sounding plugin that can add an element of randomness to your loops or whatever sounds you put it on. It creates a sample and hold type effect by grabbing a wave cycle of your audio and holding on to it for a moment before playing back. In fact, while you're at the XOXOS site downloading SandH take a look at his other vsts. He has probably the most unique and creative set of free plugins available for PC.

---------------------------

So there ya have it... my all time list of free vst plugins. I've used all of these fairly often in Ableton Live with Windows XP and have had good results and no crashing. So if you're apprehensive to download just any free vst... these have my approval atleast (for whatever that's worth;-) Enjoy...

November 03, 2009

WASPY LE VST Review

Hello.Today’s post is a review of the free Waspy LE VSTi released by Sound-Record.com.I downloaded this synth last week and spent the weekend playing with it. Here’s the low-down.

What is it?

The Waspy LE most likely got its name for sounding similar to the old wasp synth, perhaps even the wave forms were sampled from it.It’s hard to know because the description of the synth on the website is meager.It states there are 60 presets, modern high quality sound and an easy arpeggio model.

The Waspy LE has 2 oscillators (triangle, sawtooth, sine, square & noise waves available) that both run through the same amp envelope.They can be detuned and you can choose between mono and poly mode.There is one filter. You can set the filter type, which is a great feature.You aren’t stuck with just a low and hi-pass. There is also bandpass, notch, peak, as well as a 303 lowpass and 303 highpass.The filter sounds pretty good and the differences between the types are noticeable and done well. The Waspy also has a delay effect which sounds really good.I think the developer’s thought the same thing because almost every preset is drowning in it ;-)The presets are good as well…nice and fat and bright sounding.

What makes it unique?

Where the Waspy really shines is with the programmable arpeggiator/sequencer.The synthesizer has a 32 step piano roll style sequencer that allows you to create your own patterns.

Additionally, you can control the number of steps in the pattern, tempo (half-speed, normal, double-speed) as well as toggle it on and off.

Samples

Here are few samples of original patches and arpeggio sequences I put together while noodling around with this synth.

Conclusion

In conclusion I would say that this is a fun, great sounding synthesizer.It isn’t incredibly unique sounding but the arpeggiator makes up for that fact and allows you to create some fun and interesting sounding things.This is worth downloading and using.If you do, let me know what you think.

October 25, 2009

Once again its time to review another free VST available to the masses. This time I'm reviewing Mothman 1966 announced on October 21, 2009. You know the drill. I'll review the synth and then give you a few samples of patches I made. The recordings are completely dry, just the synth no magic. As always you can download the samples but you should just get the synth and play with it yourself as it is free :) Download it HERE

MOTHMAN 1966

The Mothman 1966 is based on subtractive synthesis. You have a choice of 3 wave forms for your oscillators: a diamond wave, described by the developer as being created by using FM synthesis to create a waveform that resembles a diamond, a wind wave and an 8 bit wave. You can't choose the octave of the wave form or detune them. There are two oscillators and each has its own filter and LFO and VCA. The VCA is controlled by knobs and not sliders which makes it difficult to guage what your settings are on the ADSR. The VCF has the label of "pitch" where I would expect "frequency" or "cut" which I know is accepted in some circles but always confuses me.

I think perhaps the most interesting part of this synth are the LFOs which you can choose to modulate the VCF or the VCA or turn it off. There are quite a few waves to choose from for the LFO including white & pink noise which is where the most interesting sounds came from in my opinion.

I made this sound by modulating one of the oscillators with pink noise which gave it an interesting static-y AM radio style sound.

In Conclusion

I wanted to like Mothman 1966. I spent multiple days trying to coax some great sounds out of it and they just fell into the mediocre realm everytime, which could be a commentary on my tweaking skills but I digress. I'm not saying its bad, because it's not terrible. It's just not great. It works, it seems stable and the sounds are analogish and fat enough. The presets are pretty good. They are indicative of what the synth can do but they just don't really stand out. Part of this has to do with the limited choice of waveforms I think. It doesn't go head to head with some of the other free vst offerings out there very well, but it is interesting enough to keep in my aresenal. I noticed that Mothman has some other synths available for download on his site and I'd love to see what those can do. His 2000 and 1000 vsts look interesting. Overall its worth checking out, but probably won't fall in your top 10 list.

October 21, 2009

This is part four of a four part series reviewing the three FREE vst synthesizer plugins from Opulent Audio. Previously I reviewed Opulent Audio's bLOFIsh and Tenacity VST synths. In this post we review Dirty Girl.

Out of the three synthesizers, this one is the most stripped down of the bunch.However it is still very similar in style to the other three in the following aspects:

-It ain’t pretty ;) The GUI leaves a lot to be desired

-It features the same gritty chiptune style sound

-There is an modulation matrix that allows you to assign different modulators to various targets

One new thing you can control in Dirty Girl is the Contour.This is a wave form you can draw yourself and have it modulate various targets.It sounds particularly good modulating the filter cut.

I enjoyed playing with this, but it seemed like everything started to sound like the other two VSTs.

At any rate, here are some samples of what you can do with Dirty Girl.Again, these are downloadable but you should just download the synths for free and play with them yourself!

October 14, 2009

So I know it is a few days later than I promised, but here is my review of the free VST synthesizer Tenacity.

This synth takes up where bLO-FIsh left off. It's gritty and chiptune sounding but in a more refined manner than bLO-FIsh. It has the same type of features for the most part, but more of them.

- two gate sequencers instead of one

- two phrase arpeggiators

- 3 LFO generators

Unlike bLO-FIsh you can route the arpeggiators through the individual oscillators which creates some cool effects. Here are a couple of .mp3s you can listen to that highlight two patches I made using Tenacity.

Bottom line, I liked this synthesizer alot actually. I was able to get some nice things out of it and it sets up nicely for real time tweaking. I'll probably use it in the near future in some of my new work.

Pros:

- Fairly light on the CPU

- 3 LFO generators

- 2 Filters

- Stereo Delay

- Oscillator Hard Sync

- Its Free!

Cons:

- It is a little unpredictable. It went silent in LIVE a couple of times and had to be reset.

October 11, 2009

Welcome to part 2 of this 4 part post. I am reviewing the three free vst synthesizers that Opulent Audio made available last week. Each review will include a couple of samples of some of the original patches I create with the synths. All of the samples posted will be straight from the synth there won't be any other vst or external processing on it. The point of this exercise is to see what the synth can do by themselves :) The samples are downloadable from the player, however since the synth is free I'm not sure why you wouldn't just download the synth yourself and make your own cool stuff :)

So without any more blabbering...

bLO-FIsh

Edgy and grity sounding, the bLO-FIsh has a bit of a retro arcade sound but that's its charm. Alot of the presets are screechy and not entirely easy to warm up to, but this synthesizer has alot of potential if you just sit down and create some of your own patches.

I think the coolest part of the synth is that you can set up a matrix of modulators that effect different things like panning, filters, reverb, oscilator volume, etc. This is can make some really interesting sounding effects. You can also set your oscilators to 8bit mode which gives the synth its signature Lo-Fi feel.

I made a few patches of my own with this just to see what it had in it...

The first patch I did was a combo of a Square, Triangle & Pulse wave in the oscillators.

October 10, 2009

I saw a post on Synthtopia on wednesday announcing that Opulent Audio released their three VST synthesizers free to the public: Tenacity, Dirty Girl, bLO-Fish. I'm always on the look out for new free VST plugins so I decided to download these three and give them a spin.

I don't want to waste any space going over the specs for these synths since KVR does this well enough :)

What I want to do is talk about how they sound and how they are to work with. So I'm going to do a three part post where I review each synth and post some samples of original patches I'm going to make with each one and post them.